Greatest Need (original oneshot)
by Spiritus Rex
Summary: The short, unrevised, original oneshot I wrote that became the inspiration for the expanded upon idea that is "Greatest Need," my first Merlin fanfiction still in progress that I - rather biasedly I will say - definitely recommend if you end up liking this oneshot. - "The realization hit Arthur like an arrow to a target. Merlin had made himself the enemy."


As soon as Arthur pulled himself from the cold clutches of the waters of Avalon, he could feel the _wrongness _in the air. There was no other way to describe the thick chill or the way that the seemed to drift and vibrate around him. He shivered in his armor and chainmail, dripping buckets as he dragged his feet to the shore where another person stood, _waiting_. Excalibur was ready, on guard, in Arthur's grasp, and he could hardly bring himself to wonder how the sword had gotten to his hand. The last he had seen of it it was twisting, thrown, flying through the air over the lake of Avalon.

"Arthur, _Arthur_."

The King of Camelot gripped his sword a tad bit tighter and raised it before himself slightly at the sound of his name. The figure that stood before him on the shore was trembling now, shaking as if one quick gust of wind would send him headfirst into the depths that Arthur had just come from.

"You're back, _you're back. _I knew it would work-"

Merlin, it was _Merlin_ standing there on the shore, shaking and waiting with tear tracks staining his pale face and looking oh so _happy_ at the sight of Arthur emerging from the lake. Arthur feels suddenly uprooted, and gapes for a moment in the sudden clarity that he has been _dead _for who knows how long. At least Merlin is here with him- but where is here? _When_ is here?

"Merlin-" Arthur gasped, feeling cold, "Merlin, what-"

He cuts himself off. The warlock's hands grasped at the air before him, as if he was longing to reach out and crush Arthur to his thin, barely moving, chest, but did not dare to do so lest Arthur not truly be there. He had an odd, somewhat crazed look in his eyes, a look that Arthur could not place for a moment, as it looked so alien upon Merlin's soft face. As soon as Arthur identified the look, he stopped dead in his tracks, but Merlin did not seem to notice the other man's sudden halt.

Merlin's eyes looked like _Morgana's_ did, in that last moment before Arthur had died, as she spoke of his blood and of his corpse and his death and how much she would _relish_ it.

"Arthur- I knew it would work, and it did, _it did_!"

Excalibur was in full defense position now, and Arthur began to move forward again slowly, as if he were approaching a wild, terrifying, strange new beast. "What worked, Merlin?" He asked in a whisper, all other disorienting thoughts and questions pushed aside in favor of wondering what Merlin could have _possibly_ sacrificed to raise his king from beyond the grave.

Merlin breathed out heavily, and his hands once more twitched, betraying his true emotions despite the sickly relieved smile across his face, "What I did! It worked!" he gasped, as if he were a child proudly sharing his achievements with a parent. He bounced on his heals only slightly, unable to hold still in the chill night air, "You were supposed to return in Albion's time of greatest need, but when you didn't show up for the first World War, or the _second_, well..." a thin arm swept out to gesture at the forest behind him, a terrifying backdrop of blackened, skeletal trees that suddenly seemed to loom dangerously in Arthur's vision, "I figured I needed to get creative."

The the blackened trees, the barely visible glow of a destructive fire in the distance, Merlin's crazed, mad, terrifying eyes - the realization hit Arthur like an arrow to a target. Merlin had made himself the _enemy_. Merlin, who had once done all he could for Camelot and its king, who had once only ever thought of how to help people and keep others from harm, now had burned a scar across Albion unlike any other. He had forced, through suffering, the land itself to turn to its last resort, and raise a dead king from Avalon because he was the only hope it had against the twisted, hurt warlock. Arthur shut his eyes against imagined screams of terror, and his head throbbed in response to his grinding of teeth.

_Oh Merlin… you changed..._

Arthur Pendragon opened his eyes and looked at his friend. But no, _no_, this was not his friend, not _his_ Merlin. Not anymore. The man that stood before him was twisted by the immortal life he had been forced to live, and twisted more so by the mortal lives he had been forced to watch fade. How could destiny be this cruel?

"Arthur?"

He could hear the tears and the fragile hope, thick as they clogged Merlin's throat - a throat still wrapped in a damnable neckerchief - but no, Arthur could not let himself be clouded by his emotions now. He had a duty to uphold.

"_Arthur?"_

He was the Once and Future King. He was stronger than this. He had led armies through battles and seen his men die around him too many times for him to be moved to tears by one man. No man was worth his tears. No man.

Arthur knew that he would hate himself for years to come for what he is about to do. He knew that he was marooning himself in this strange new world without a friend or guide. He knew that Merlin didn't deserve this. Any of this. He knew, oh god, he _knew_.

His hand clenched painfully tight around Excalibur's hilt, the sword his friend had forged for _him_ in the breath of the last dragon, oh so many years ago.

_This is no mortal blade…_

Arthur struck.


End file.
